Coming Soon,
Rossini's Semiramide and other forthcoming vocal highlights
Vocal and operatic highlights for the late summer and early autumn include a live Wigmore Hall recital from Joyce DiDonato and the Brentano Quartet, Vivaldi from Cecilia Bartoli, and possibly the most hotly-anticipated complete opera recording of the year: Sir Mark Elder’s uncut Semiramide, starring Albina Shagimuratova and Daniela Barcellona as the murderous Queen of Babylon and her estranged son. (Many of you have written to us asking for updates on this release since the incendiary Proms performance two years ago, and there’s now just under a month to wait!).
Rossini: Semiramide
Albina Shagimuratova, Daniela Barcellona, Mirco Palazzi, Barry Banks; Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, Sir Mark Elder
Recorded on period instruments and reinstating all of the passages which are usually cut in modern performances, this is the first studio recording of Rossini’s late Italian opera in over two decades; the live performance which took place in London just after the recording sessions in 2016 was described as ‘thrilling, every second of it’ (The Guardian) and an evening of ‘multi-faceted magnificence’ (The Independent). Released 7th September.
Available Formats: 4 CDs, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Recorded live at Wigmore Hall last December, this recital includes Jake Heggie’s song-cycle Camille Claudel: Into the Fire (written for DiDonato in 2012, and inspired by the French sculptor and lover of Rodin), six songs by Richard Strauss and Debussy’s Trois chansons de Bilitis in new arrangements for voice and string quartet by the Brentano violinist Mark Steinberg. Released 7th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Ravel & Duparc: Aimer et mourir
Magdalena Kožená (mezzo), Deutsches Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, Robin Ticciati
Ravel’s second Daphnis et Chloë Suite and Valses nobles et sentimentales bookend five songs by Duparc in the composer’s own orchestrations: Aux Etoiles, L’Invitation a Voyage, Au pays ou se fait la guerre, Chanson triste and Phidylé ; reviewing the Czech mezzo’s performance of Duparc at the BBC Proms a few years ago, MusicWeb declared that ‘Kožená sang these delicate flowers to perfection'. Released 21st September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Bernstein: Wonderful Town
Danielle de Niese, Alysha Umphress, Nathan Gunn; London Symphony Orchestra & Chorus, Sir Simon Rattle
Rattle first recorded Bernstein’s boisterous paean to the city that never sleeps back in 1998 with Birmingham Contemporary Music Group, but this live recording (made at the Barbican a few days before Christmas 2017) wins hands-down for sheer sass and Broadway chutzpah: the LSO trumpets and saxophones give the John Wilson Orchestra a run for their money, and the riotous conga almost sparked a Friday afternoon dance-off in the Presto office…Released 7th September.
Available Format: SACD
Following the runaway success of her Grammy-winning Crazy Girl Crazy on Alpha last year (which centred on Berg’s Lulu), the Canadian soprano tackles Berg’s Sieben frühe Lieder alongside Webern’s Fünf Lieder nach Gedichten von R. Dehmel, Wolf’s Mignon-Lieder, and songs by Zemlinsky, Schoenberg and Alma Mahler. Released 7th September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
A Walk with Ivor Gurney
Dame Sarah Connolly (mezzo soprano), Simon Callow (narrator), Aurora Orchestra, Tenebrae
As well as Gurney’s In Flanders Fields and By a Bierside (arranged by Howells) and Sleep (arranged by Finzi), this celebration of the composer includes music by Vaughan Williams and Howells, plus Judith Bingham’s A Walk with Ivor Gurney, written for Connolly and Tenebrae in 2013 and setting poetry by Gurney alongside texts from Roman memorials in Gloucestershire. Released 19th October.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Somewhat surprisingly, this is the debut solo recording from the Australian heldentenor, recognised as one of the world’s leading Parsifals and Siegmunds: excerpts from both roles feature here, as well as arias from Rienzi and Lohengrin, Wagner’s Wesendonk-Lieder, Charles Griffes’s Three Poems of Fiona Macleod, and (possibly in the interests of word-play!) Samuel Barber’s Sure on this shining night. Released 21st September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Contrabandista
Javier Camarena (tenor), Cecilia Bartoli (mezzo), Les Musiciens du Prince, Gianluca Capuano
The elegant, sweet-voiced Mexican tenor explores the works and repertoire of singer and composer Manuel Garcia (the father of Maria Malibran and Pauline Viardot, whose music Bartoli has championed – she joins Camarena for a duet from Rossini’s Armida). Includes ‘Si, ritrovarla io giuro’ from La cenerentola, which was granted a rare encore when Camarena sang it at The Metropolitan Opera in 2014 after stepping in for Juan Diego Flórez. Released 5th October.
Available Formats: MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Zender: Schubert's Winterreise
Julian Prégardien (tenor), Deutsche Radio Philharmonie, Robert Reimer
The German tenor makes his debut on Alpha with Hans Zender’s Expressionist 1993 orchestration of Schubert’s great song-cycle, which is a real rarity on record: the only other available version in the catalogue is by Julian’s father Christoph! Prégardien Junior’s staged account of the work earlier this year was described by Le Figaro as ‘an incendiary performance combining vocal expressiveness, loving attention to the words and theatrical presence with sensitivity and intelligence’. Released 21st September.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Nearly two decades after her first Vivaldi album (which won a Grammy and sold almost three quarters of a million copies), Bartoli returns to the music of the ‘Red Priest’. Neither cover nor track-listing are confirmed yet, but based on her concert-diary we surmise that the repertoire may be similar to the Viva Vivaldi! programme (consisting chiefly of operatic arias) which Bartoli performed on tour with Il Giardino Armonico several years ago…Released 16th November.
Available Formats: CD, MP3, FLAC, Hi-Res FLAC
Katherine Cooper - Head of Editorial
